The chairman did not speak for a while.
The sounds coming from outside the window—the shouts before the city gate,
and the clash of metal—filled the silence in his place.
He spoke carefully,
as though choosing a single wrong word might shake an entire city.
“…Very well.”
Then, after taking a brief breath, he added,
“But that is not a matter to be decided in a place like this.”
Yun nodded.
“I understand.”
The chairman continued.
“Right now, every moment is precious.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward the gate.
“If those outside the walls resort to force—before that happens, first.”
The chairman looked straight at Yun.
“Can you support Arku with the full strength of the Silver Moon Corps?”
Yun answered without hesitation.
“We can.”
“That is what we had hoped for.”
She added briefly,
“We cannot simply stand by and watch the Empire wound Arku.”
The air in the room eased ever so slightly.
But it was not over yet.
Yun immediately went on.
“However, there is something you must do, Chairman.”
The chairman nodded.
“Speak.”
“Please calm public opinion among the city residents.”
Yun did not mix emotion into her words.
Instead, she made the condition clear.
“Even if we face the Imperial Army outside the gate,”
“I do not want Arku to come to fear us.”
She looked at the chairman.
“We fight to protect the city, not to frighten it.”
Raymond quietly added,
“Chairman. What we need now is not only ‘victory,’ but ‘control.’”
“If the citizens fall into terror, the walls will collapse from within first.”
The chairman slowly nodded.
“…Understood.”
“We will do what we can.”
Yun added one more condition.
“And.”
Her gaze brushed briefly over Raymond,
then returned to the chairman.
“I would also like you to withdraw the measures against those currently wanted.”
“At least from this moment on.”
Objections immediately burst out among the councilors.
“Wait!”
One councilor stepped forward.
“One of those wanted people killed a military policeman.”
He glared at Yun.
“Was that also the Empire’s scheme?”
The room froze over again.
If Yun delayed her answer even for a moment,
that in itself would look like an evasion.
Yun answered without hesitation.
“No.”
“That was… indeed done by one of our members.”
Breaths like curses leaked out among the councilors.
Raymond’s brows rose faintly.
Even the chairman could not hide his expression.
Yun did not retreat a single step.
Her eyes sharpened.
“And—”
“If we become citizens, we will see that they are punished according to proper legal procedure.”
“Punished?”
The opposing councilor asked back with a sneer.
“You mean to say you will acknowledge the law?”
Yun nodded firmly.
“Yes.”
“I called this an agreement.”
Her voice grew colder.
“If we remain outside the law, no one will take responsibility.”
“If we come within the law, we must bear responsibility.”
“That is—the price of the rights we demand.”
The chairman raised his palm, suppressing the murmurs of the councilors.
“…Very well.”
He let out a long breath.
“Then the matter concerning the Silver Moon Corps will be ‘deferred’ until the issue of the Imperial Army outside the walls is resolved.”
“There are many practical considerations. We cannot decide on citizenship here and now.”
Yun nodded immediately.
“Yes.”
“That is correct.”
The chairman added one final word.
“However.”
His gaze hardened.
“Your strength, from this day forward, must be directed toward Arku’s enemies.”
“Outside the gate. The forest. And—that holy knight.”
Yun answered briefly.
“Understood.”
She rose from her seat.
“Then we will prepare at once.”
Raymond also stood with her.
“Chairman.”
He spoke in a low voice.
“There is no time. Before the sun sets, the board outside the gate must change.”
—
The sun was sinking.
Right before Arku’s city gate,
beneath the sky dyed red, knights and soldiers gathered.
In the place where the day’s commotion had settled,
only a sharper tension remained.
The sound of breathing, the metallic scrape of armor against armor, footsteps trampling the ground.
Everyone knew that it began “from now.”
Cedric spoke cautiously.
“Sir Adel, truly…”
“Silence.”
Adel cut him off.
He looked up at the city gate.
Inside, there was silence.
No refusal, no negotiation, no excuse.
That silence made Adel’s anger all the sharper.
Adel shouted toward the wall.
“You have refused my proposal!”
His voice split the open ground before the gate.
“This is treason against the Empire!”
After drawing in a brief breath, Adel continued.
“However, I will offer one thing.”
He tightened his grip on his sword hilt and shouted,
“Come out, whoever will answer a duel!”
“If you win, we will withdraw today.”
“But if we are victorious—open the gate and provide supplies!”
Atop the wall, the chairman and the councilors frowned as they heard him.
As if dumbfounded,
some turned their heads away, and others shut their mouths coldly.
That was their answer.
Adel’s eyes narrowed.
When there was no reply, he shouted even louder.
“You are the ones who refused an honorable duel!”
“Therefore, now—I will open the wall by force if I must!”
Adel took one step back.
Then he waved his hand toward the troops gathered behind him.
“Open it.”
It was a precise command.
“By any means necessary.”
He withdrew behind the soldiers and began watching the situation.
Cedric gritted his teeth.
His face had gone rigid.
He spoke in a low voice.
“Priest.”
The military priest approached.
Fatigue remained in his eyes, but there was no hesitation.
“I ask for amplification.”
“…Yes.”
As the priest raised his hand, his eyes turned red.
At the same time, Cedric’s breathing grew rough.
His face flushed, and the veins in his neck and temples bulged.
It did not feel like his strength was “increasing,” but like it was being forced up to a level his body could not endure.
Cedric exhaled low.
“Hoo…”
He slowly walked toward the gate.
The other knights moved with him.
The soldiers followed, and on top of the wall, the defenders lowered their spearpoints and held their breath.
The enormous gate of thick steel blocked their way.
The heavy smell of iron and the odor of old oil stung their noses.
Cedric turned back and pointed to one soldier.
“Shield. Throw it.”
The soldier hurled his shield with all his might.
The shield cut through the air,
and Cedric caught it roughly with one hand.
The moment he seized the edge of the shield—
Cedric drew Idrin up to its limit.
It was not blood, but a current.
The power seething inside his body poured into his arms,
traveled through his palms, and seeped into the shield.
As though the iron had come alive for an instant, the shield’s surface trembled faintly.
Cedric gripped the shield with both hands,
and drove it straight down into the gap beneath the gate.
Kwaang—!
A fierce impact rang out.
With a sound as if the shield might snap, it was forced under the bottom of the gate.
A very small gap opened.
It was not enough to be seen with the eye, but a “place for force to enter” had been made.
“Now.”
Cedric and three knights lowered their bodies at the same time.
They thrust both hands into the gap and gripped the underside of the gate.
And then—
they began to lift with all their strength.
Kugugugu…
A roar traveled through the entire gate.
The shrieking friction of steel.
The gate budged… budged… rising little by little.
The chains along the ground were dragged and twisted, and dust poured down.
The defenders atop the wall were horrified.
Screams burst out from among the citizens beyond the gate as well.
“No!”
The chairman shouted urgently.
“Stop them! Stop them at once!”
Inside the gate—
the area beneath the gatehouse shook.
From the upper section connected to the wall, stones began to pour down.
They were defensive measures prepared during the day.
Large stones fell, striking armor and bouncing off the ground.
The clang of metal and dull impacts rang out one after another.
But the knights holding firm beneath the gate did not so much as flinch.
Cedric and the three knights continued lifting the gate, veins bulging on both arms.
The amplification cast by the priest drove their bodies forward by force.
Even when stones smashed into their shoulders and grazed their heads, they gritted their teeth and did not let go.
As the gate rose higher,
the guards and military police gathered inside instinctively stepped backward.
They had the thought that they had to stop it, but no answer as to how.
Even as they held swords and spears, they only looked at one another’s faces before the opening gate.
Whether someone went out or someone came in, from that moment on, this place would become a battlefield.
It was then.
A small figure, cloak and hood pulled low, walked toward the gate.
One guard saw him and reached out a hand.
“Uh… kid, no. Get back!”
The child—no, the small figure—stopped.
Then slowly removed his hood.
Long ears.
A wet nose.
Slightly bared fangs.
A Haraya, Taejin.
The guards instinctively flinched back.
Someone swallowed their breath, and someone half-raised the tip of their spear, then lowered it again.
The one standing before them now was not a “child,” but a red-eyed Haraya.
Taejin’s eyes were already stained red.
He crouched down beneath the gate.
The tiny gap formed as the gate rose.
Through it, Cedric and the knights’ feet and hands, and the ground, could be seen.
Taejin let out a short breath.
His gaze fixed on the ground.
The stone floor was damp with the moisture and mud of sunset.
The soles of the knights’ iron boots were also smeared with muddy water,
and sweat and moisture had spread thinly.
Moisture barely noticeable to the eye—
but for Taejin, it was enough.
Taejin’s Mirkin touched that “condition.”
The moisture soaked into the ground stopped for a moment, as if holding its breath—
then froze in an instant.
There was no sound.
Instead, sensation changed first.
Slipperiness.
“—?!”
Cedric’s foot slipped first.
The two knights bracing beside him also lost their balance at the same time.
Their heavy armor and amplified strength instead became poison.
The more they tried to hold firm, the more violently their feet slid.
The moment their fingertips slipped while still gripping the underside of the gate—
someone gritted his teeth and shouted.
“Let go!”
The knights hurriedly pulled their hands free and threw themselves backward.
Cedric struck his forehead against the gate as if grazing it, yet still forced his body aside.
And in the next instant,
Kugugugu—!!
The gate that had been lifted crashed straight down to the ground with a thunderous roar.
The shield that had been wedged in as a brace shattered into pieces and flew apart,
and dust and iron filings scattered inward.
The sound of the gate closing was like the entire castle drawing in its breath.
The inside of the gate stirred.
The guards, the military police, and the citizens beyond the gate began murmuring.
“Mirkin…?”
“That Haraya just…?”
The chairman, who had been descending from the wall, also stiffened at the sound.
He saw Taejin crouched beneath the gate, his hood removed.
Taejin did not look up at the chairman.
He merely spoke briefly.
“Yun sent me.”
Leaving only those words behind, Taejin pulled his hood low again.
And before anyone could stop him, he slipped quickly through the gaps and vanished into the darkness.